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And, in fine, the ancient precept, Know thyself, and the modern precept, Study nature, become at last one maxim.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Ralph Waldo Emerson
Age: 78 †
Born: 1803
Born: May 25
Died: 1882
Died: April 27
Biographer
Diarist
Essayist
Philosopher
Poet
Writer
Boston
Massachusetts
R. W. Emerson
Waldo Emerson
Lasts
Maxim
Last
Maxims
Science
Thyself
Nature
Ancient
Become
Fine
Self
Modern
Study
Knowledge
Precept

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I think all men know better than they do know that the institutions we so volubly commend are go-carts and baubles but they darenot trust their presentiments.
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Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him.
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Self-love is, in almost all men, such an over-weight that they are incredulous of a man's habitual preference of the general good to his own but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth, rank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration.
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I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain, and the Islands, - the Genius and creative Principle of each and of all eras, in my own mind.
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The private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy,--more formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men.
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There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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As long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems to be in his way.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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But harder still it has proved to resist and rule the dragon Money, with his paper wings. Chancellors and Boards of Trade, Pitt, Peel, and Bobinson, and their parliaments, and their whole generation, adopted false principles, and went to their graves in the belief that they were enriching the country which they were impoverishing.
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I dip my pen in the blackest ink, because I'm not afraid of falling into my inkpot.
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There is a tendency in things to right themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that shatters rotten system, allows things to take a new and natural order.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.
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There are men too superior to be seen except by a few, as there are notes too high for the scale of most ears.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The greatest genius is the most indebted person.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Books take their place according to their specific gravity as surely as potatoes in a tub.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The imaginative faculty of the soul must be fed with objects immense and eternal.
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Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly.
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Don't make a novel to establish a principle of political economy. You will spoil both.
Ralph Waldo Emerson